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Quit Smoking- Nicotine Withdrawal Symptoms – Tips

Nicotine Withdrawal: What is it and what can you do about it?

Nicotine withdrawal begins when you significantly reduce your consumption of nicotine, withdrawal can include feeling out of sorts, edginess, headaches, lack of focus and concentration. If you try to drag out or phase down your consumption you may be also dragging out your withdrawal making it last longer than necessary. As you phase down your consumption of cigarettes your body resets itself to accommodate the amount of nicotine it is getting and wanting. Phasing out can be like death by a thousand cuts, sometimes you may be better off by just getting it over with all at once.

Because you have used nicotine over a long period of time the receptors in your brain have gotten used to its daily feed of nicotine. An average smoker who consumes 20 cigarettes a day takes about 10 puffs per cigarette, or about 70,000 puffs a year. That’s a lot of puffs.

What does puffing 70,000 times a year have to do with nicotine withdrawal? A lot! Each time you inhale smoke from a cigarette, the cigarette contains nicotine that travels to your brain in about 7 seconds, releasing a pleasure chemical that gives you that short lived aha feeling. If you do anything 70,000 times a year for many years and then suddenly stop, you are going to miss it.

The reason you smoke 20 a day is the receptors in the pleasure center in your brain have gotten used to those puffs. When you first started smoking your receptors were very sensitive and a little went a long way, your first cigarette probably made you nauseous and even sick, then you got used to it and now smoke 20 a day. As your receptors became desensitized you needed more to get the same kick until you reached your personal level of satiety. What occurs when you go from 20 to zero is something called withdrawal.

If you have never tried to stop smoking you should know about nicotine withdrawal. If you have quit before you know about withdrawal and how you handled it during prior attempts. Nicotine withdrawal may be something you can handle easily or something you may need help with. However if you drink caffeinated coffee and are thinking about giving it up at the same time you may be in for double the withdrawal. The symptoms for caffeine withdrawal are a lot like nicotine withdrawal and you may want to rethink the timing of giving them up together. Many people have a cigarette with their coffee and therefore believe they have to give up both to succeed. If you plan on giving up both be prepared for additional withdrawal or give up one at a time.

Understanding the difference between withdrawal threshold and withdrawal tolerance can help you figure out how you will approach the subject.

Withdrawal threshold is the point at which you begin to experience withdrawal. It generally starts when you significantly reduce the consumption of nicotine. Your personal threshold level is reached very quickly and subsides just as fast. If you have quit before you will know when it has started and you can prepare for it.

Withdrawal tolerance is the amount of withdrawal you can handle, either mentally or physically. Some people have a very high tolerance and some a very low tolerance. If you have a high tolerance you will cruise through it, if your tolerance is low you may need help. Knowing how much withdrawal you can handle will help you decide if you are going to stop smoking by going cold turkey or with the use of a stop smoking aid. The saying, no pain no gain applies here, a bit of short-lived discomfort is worth the reward, you quitting.

A good way to deal with nicotine withdrawal is to understand whether your challenge is mental, physical or imagined.

Mental withdrawal can be a matter of separation anxiety, meaning you just gave up something you have doing for a long time or simply your response to major changes in your everyday pattern of behavior. A clue to whether this is the case is if you don’t need it, but miss it, feel a sense of loss, refer to yourself as a smoker or talk about cigarettes being your best friend. If it’s mental withdrawal you are dealing with, it will go away. Accept the fact that you have moved on just like you move on when you change jobs, houses or friends.

Physical withdrawal is something different. Physical withdrawal is your body physically reacting to you eliminating the steady predictable flow of nicotine to the brain. It’s something the brain got used to and wants you to have because you have doing it for years or decades. Compared to withdrawal from certain pharmaceuticals, alcohol, or hard drugs, nicotine withdrawal is rather innocuous.

Quick Tips for handling Nicotine Withdrawal

1 Consider the use of a stop smoking aid (some eliminate withdrawal completely)

2 Drink plenty of water

3 Eliminate or avoid the sources of stress and anxiety

4 Exercise

5 Meditate

6 Find something to do that will occupy your mind

7 Reduce or eliminate coffee consumption

8 Find a healthy oral substitute such as apples or drinking water

9 Change or modify your daily pattern of life/work

10 Get up at a different time

11 Reduce or eliminate intake of caffeine before or after you stop smoking

12 Assign a value to your tolerance 10 being high 1 being low

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